


Persephone's Song

by HalcyonStars



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Creature Castiel, Golden Age of Piracy, Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Pirate Dean, Siren Castiel, Sirens, Winged Castiel, depictions of violence, implied rape (not major characters and not graphic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 21:19:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5348903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalcyonStars/pseuds/HalcyonStars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not a man on the sea could rival The Huntress for her speed, nor did they have a crew more loyal than the men who scrubbed the tar-smeared deck ‘til it shone like the sharp edge of a sword. Not a man.</p><p>But then again, no one was ever to say that The Huntress had to meet its ends at a man’s hands. The sea was full of more than just men.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Persephone's Song

**Author's Note:**

> I’m back from my hiatus (and a little rusty with writing) but I’m glad to be back!

Many nights the young boy would go to bed, lulled to a pleasant sleep by the raspy voice of his Aunt Ellen. She would tell him stories that he loved, stories of the ocean that he always watched his father sail out onto, his hand raised in a silent goodbye as he left his son ashore and took to the seas, only to be reunited an indeterminable amount of months later, skin darker and beard bushier. For what it was worth, the boy didn’t feel resentment towards his absent father, for the man never stayed home long enough for the boy to truly learn how to miss him. What he  _did_ feel was jealousy. He longed to take that journey with his father, not for the familial company but for the adventure. He yearned to be on the sea, and until he was old enough to set sail himself, all he had was the stories his Aunt told him.

Many of her stories came from her husband, Robert, and were not tales crafted of falsity but were from his own life, as true as the memories in his head. They were stories of battles and mythical creatures that the human imagination could never create, of woesome beasts beyond the minds comprehension. They sounded ghastly, the stuff of true nightmares, and the boy couldn’t wait to see them for himself.

It was one day, when Robert came home and revealed he wished to abandon his life at sea for one on land that Ellen had a new, much darker, story to tell. Robert came home, baring a single feather that the boy vowed to carry with him always, and a new tale. It was a tale of winged creatures that were infinite in their beauty. It was these creatures, Robert said, that took the lives many aboard the _Impala_ , and destroyed the ship itself.

A few respectable men – as respectable as a true pirate could be – returned to their families that day: Robert and cantankerous old Rufus were two, as well as Pastor Jim, whom against all odds, was an outrageously good pirate.

The boy’s father, John Winchester, was not one of these men.

It was his rocky relationship with his father and the knowledge that John wasn’t the most moral man that kept him from feeling the fullness of the loss. Many men who spent unforeseeably long stretches of time off land went mad with a lust-driven desire for a warm body. Some sought comfort in their fellow crew. Some, like Robert, could wait an eternity to be reunited with their love waiting for when they made port. Others, which while barbaric, but regrettably common amongst many pirates, took what they sought without much care for consent. John, unfortunately, was one of these men.

The boy often asked to hear that tale, a request that baffled both Bobby and Ellen, whom questioned why the boy would want to hear the story of his own father’s demise. But it was in the way the young child’s questions were laced with wondering and the way Robert retold the experience with confusion that it became apparent that he was trying to figure out one thing.

_Why?_

Why was Bobby spared where his father fell? What was the reason?

After all, these things were important, especially for a young boy waiting to set out to sea.

  

[ ](http://www.1001fonts.com/hentimps-circlet-font.html)

The winds swept over raging seas in cold gusts, every bit as cruel as the merciless tides. The waves broke against the sides of _The Huntress_ as they tried to climb her edges, rocking the ship and sending a few of the weaker-stomached crew members hurling their lunches overboard. The boy, a grown man now with the name Dean Winchester threw his head back and let out a full bellied laugh, silenced by the howling winds and crash of water. _The Huntress,_ a magnificent beaut’ under the command of captain Winchester cut through the wind, her front sharp and efficient as she rolled over waves. There was not a man nor ship that sailed the sea that could match The Huntress, not the Leviathan that lurked in the deep blue, or the men foolish enough to name their vessel after the beasts.

Oh, those men, they’d met a cruel and ironic death if Captain Winchester had ever heard one, devoured by the very creatures they’d chosen as their ships namesake.

A more sympathetic folk may have called Dean crass for laughing at their passing – the crew of the Leviathan were neither nice nor liked by anyone, and their captain, a man of the name Richard Roman had always been too conceited for Dean’s tastes. By the very nature of being a pirate, one had to have somewhat of a bastard, but even Dean had limits, and Dick Roman broke every one of them. So like he said, maybe a sympathetic man wouldn’t have laughed, but Dean was not sympathetic – not towards them anyway – and so violently cackled as he toasted to their deaths. He tipped some grog (no use in wasting good rum) over the side of the boat in a sardonic goodbye to the ‘Dick Head’, (which he meant both as a shortened version of his name and his likeness to a toilet) the sound of the hurling wind and his crew’s hoots filling his ears.

So no, not a man on the sea could rival The Huntress for her speed, nor did they have a crew more loyal than the men who scrubbed the tar-smeared deck ‘til it shone like the sharp edge of a sword. Not a man.

But then again, no one was ever to say that The Huntress had to meet its ends at a man’s hands. The sea was full of more than just men.

Dean tasted the salt-spray on his tongue as he tipped his head back and opened his mouth, his eyes shut as the wind ran through his long blonde hair. It was getting far too long, already brushing the bottom of his ears where it curled under with the moisture. The icy wind dried the beading sweat on his skin, so quickly it was like it was never there. The large sails billowed as they caught the wind and heaved the ship forward. The sails were a dark green colour, and when the rain would fall and the sea would come home, it would speckle with water and the sails would turn deep black like the oceans depths.

There was no feeling quite like it for Dean, feeling the wind in his face, the rush of adrenaline when his sword would clang with someone else’s, that sharp piecing twang when the clash of metal pierced the air, the lingering smell by canon-fire or the celebratory binge of rum after a well-earned victory. It was the perfect life, high seas and lowly beasts – whether it be men or mother sea’s children – what more could he ask for?

They were in the process of sailing from the Barataria Bay – Benny, his first mate and trusted friend had family of the name Lafitte in the area, infamous and brutal pirates and their best chandler – when trouble arose.

Unforgiving tides were normal, grey clouds and rolling thunder were welcome, but this far north and this time of the year… it shouldn’t have been this calm. The ocean was open ‘til the worlds end, with secrets yet to be revealed, yet in this place, as the water laid still, cut through only by the pointed bow of The Huntress, it felt as if everything was so abundantly clear, yet Dean couldn’t understand what it was. The silence was eerie. 

Dean had to concentrate to hear even the ripple of water beneath his ships, and even then, the creak of the hull and the tired planks of The Huntress whined louder.

Then he heard it, so calm and perfect and preternatural in its beauty that it was unlike anything else he’d ever heard. He felt a dizzying warmth rush over him, like the feeling of sliding into a warm lass when they made port or the pleasant thrum of alcohol running through his blood, he was drunk on the sound, and he needed more.

“Where are we?” Dean slurred, not to anyone in particular but to anyone who would answer. Last he realised they were surrounded by glaucous surges of water, and now the ship was being led between two sharp cliffs. Jagged edges protruded from either side of the rock-face, boulders looking like they were teetering and ready to fall. The passage was so broad, but Dean thought that if they continued the rocks would surely scratch the sides of his beloved ship, that the stained wood would gouge away with a sickening scrape as they travelled onward, forward and forward until they met their end. Dean would do anything to save his ship, and yet he did nothing as they sailed on. He thought of how it may happen, bilge water weighing them down to the cruel bottom, but he didn’t care, all he cared about was that damn ensnaring singing, and how he yearned to be closer to it.

He let his ears follow the humming, pulling his eyes along with them.

It was as his eyes raked over the jagged cliffs that he saw him, sitting on the ledge of a rock about halfway up the cliff face. Legs tan and smooth hung over the edge, dark at the feet like they’d been dragged through mud, and Dean saddened at the thought that anything so beautiful should be dirtied. That skin travelled up to reveal a chiselled chest, blue eyes brighter than the sea and deceptive hair, hair that seemed black but shone brown in the sun. He looked at Dean and smiled, the most beautiful thing the captain had ever seen, and Dean thought that the mermaids themselves would cry in jealousy, for not even they could be this lovely. The man kept singing, bringing Dean to the railing of The Huntress, his long blonde hair flowing behind him in the gentle breeze.

_“Seirenes!”_

Distantly, through the haze of muted sounds and the overwhelming noise of the singing in his ears, Dean heard his crew members shouting in pain as they fell overboard. He vaguely noticed figures sweeping down from the cliff and snatching his crew away; their screams followed them, but they left the memory of themselves made in blood on The Huntress’ deck. He ignored the cannon fire and the sweep of swords cutting through the air, his green eyes remaining glued to blue ones.

Though the waters in the north were deceptively calm, below the surface they were every bit as wicked as they always were, a realization that dawned on Dean as he fell overboard the collapsing ship, plunging into the icy waters. All he could see was the distorted view of his ship from his position beneath the water, his body convulsing in weak shivers at the cold. The last thing he saw was a dark shadow diving towards the water and breaking the surface, a warm hand gripping his wrist as he closed his eyes.

  

He awoke on solid land, the heavy salt of the sea cut thin by the tang of fresh grass, his skin no longer tickled by beaded sweat but by the wispy swards covering the cliff top. He lifted his head and let out a groan.  

“Sshh, sshh,” a deep voice hushed, cradling the back of Dean’s neck and helping to sit him up. Dean didn't gazed, more like his eyes vaguely sauntered into the direction of those deep blue eyes he saw from his ship.

The thought jolted him back into action. His crew, which surely had perished, and his ship which without doubt only existed in broken pieces resting in the sand banks.

Dean's first thought was sorrow for his ship, appropriately followed by sorrow for his crew. The thought that hit him next was - 

“What’s going on?” Dean mumbled, looking around. All he could see was green of the grass and an array of bright flowers. Even in his hazy mind, he thought of how strange it was to see so many flowers this far out at sea.

“Hush, my pirate.”

With each blink his world sharpened, and it was then that he noticed that he was not surrounded entirely by a field of red blossoms. The red flowers, or what he first assumed were red, were in reality shrouded in a blanket of blood that masked their true colour in a much darker one. He recognised some of the men around him as his crew, lolling in the red meadow, surrounded by masses of innards: corpses that painted the flowers and rags of skin both fresh and rotted. Dean thanked his past ventures as a pirate for his iron stomach. 

Garth, a landlubber if Dean ever met one but with eyes like a hawk (which proved advantageous for his permanent residency in the crow’s nest) was laying sleepily in the grass, drowsy but unharmed. His calm demeanour and the sleepy smile on his face juxtaposed gruesomely with the pool of blood he laid in, and it was the abhorrence of it all that made Dean turn to look at apatite eyes and the soft hands cupping his neck. It was gentle, defying the bloody meadows. From this close, Dean could see that the man’s feet were not dirty, but were covered in scales a deep cesious colour, his toes capped with sharp black nails.

It was behind the man, however, that really caught Dean’s eyes. Huge wings protruded from his sculpted shoulders, black like a ravens but a bright smalt at each feather’s tip. It made Dean wonder if he had flown over the water, wings spread and mouth open in a relaxed smile, skimming his wings through the waves and soaking up the blue until it was a part of him. 

Before Dean knew what he was doing, he was reaching for the feathers, curling his fingers into the soft plumage.

“Dean?” the man asked.

“How-” he slurred, before swallowing, and trying again. “How do you know my name?”

“I know things, just like I know you’re a good man, a man who deserves to be spared.”

With the pools of blood seeping into the earth and drying castory in the sun, Dean needn’t ask to what fate he was referring.

“I am Castiel,” the blue-eyed man offered, and Dean thought it was appropriate that such an odd and beautiful name be given to such a creature.

“You’re a siren.”

Castiel nodded.

“Why me?” Dean asked. “Why did you spare me?”

It was a question he not only asked for himself, but for his long-dead father and his land-ridden uncle Bobby.

Castiel shuffled so that he was sitting with his legs spread, and nestled Dean in so that his back rested against Castiel’s chest. A weary Dean settled in comfortably, his energy directed towards understanding the warmth blossoming in his chest when Castiel cocooned his wings around them, blocking the wind and ceasing Dean’s shivering. He was well adjusted to bitter winds, but his waterlogged clothes didn’t help matters much. 

“How much do you know of sirens, Dean Winchester?” Castiel whispered.

“’s expecting a tail,” he murmured, to which he was rewarded a low chuckle. It was a sound that Dean thought he could possibly get drunk on, even more so than on his song.

“I’m a siren, Dean, not a mermaid.” He rustled his wings, the soft downs dragging across the goose-bumps on Dean’s skin. Castiel sighed; not annoyed, but in an anticipatory way, the same way Ellen sighed when she was about to begin a story. “When Persephone was taken by Hades, sirens were tasked with finding her. Our song was made to lure her home.

“Persephone was taken against her will,” Castiel told him, brushing Dean’s damp blonde hair from his forehead. “We don’t like people who do things against other peoples will.”

Dean furrowed his brow, thinking back to all the times they’d dropped anchor at port, when he’d sit back in a poorly-lit pub – obscuring faces and morality alike – as his men would grab a bottle of rum and saunter off with whoever would take their company. He’d never questioned the accord in the silent gesture that was leading a lady upstairs (a gesture every swashbuckling marauder knew the lewd meaning of), not until a gravel-ridden voice has provoked him to.

“Your crew aren’t as noble as you think, Captain Winchester.”

“Who?” Dean started, but the newfound doubt in his mind and the red-flecked blades of grass told him it was an answer he would rather avoid. Dean closed his eyes, and took in a deep breath through his mouth, turning his head into an awaiting bed of feathers. He breathed in the smell, which carried a rather appropriate scent for their given location: the saccharine aroma of flowers with a slight punch of sea-salt, and the ozone that only comes with impending rainfall. It was the sweetest combination of home, of the fields outside Bobby and Ellen’s and the briny aftertaste of the ocean.

“We’re not monsters, but we do prey on them.”

 

The slight shift in angle of Castiel’s feathers in the wind was the only warning Dean got before another siren touched down near them, her scaled feet – claret in colour where Castiel’s were a midnight blue – landing in a pool of blood. Dean tried not to flinch as it (what he could only assume was Gordon’s blood, from the deep chocolate skin and red-hilted cutlass that laid abandoned next to the marred entrails) splattered onto his boots. He may have never liked the man in the slightest, in fact his hatred for the blaggard almost rivalled his hatred for Dick, but that didn’t mean he wanted to stain his already dirty pants. He _was_ a pirate after all, not a barbarian. 

He took his attention away from the dizzying sight in favour of scrutinizing the siren.

She had rusty red hair that fell in supple waves behind her pale, alabaster shoulders. It blew behind her with the winds effort, strong gusts that surely should have reduced it to graceless tangles by now, not a halo encircling her deep hazel eyes. She was beautiful, incredibly so, just like the man she came to rest her hand on. Her wings, while not as big as Castiel’s, were a cinnabar colour to match her hair impeccably. Her pale skin, perfect like porcelain and smooth as china had not a freckle or single blemish but for the red trail of blood flowing from her pink lips. She looked at Dean with curiosity, and licked her lips before speaking.

“Brother?” she questioned, before peaking her tongue out to clean her chin. Her pale hand curled into Castiel’s wing and toyed affectionately with the feathers, an action that for no justifiable reason sent a tremor of jealousy through Dean.

“Not this one, Anael. He’s good.”

She looked into Dean’s eyes, and it was Dean’s scrutiny as a pirate - one that was essential in identifying potential mutineers or the lads with sticky fingers beyond their own ration of loot - that allowed him to see the pity, perhaps guilt, flicker over her orbs.

“So he is. I’m happy to see this isn't a case of 'the apple didn't fall far from the tree', Mr. Winchester.”

That seemed to appease her, as the next moment she spread her wings, and with a powerful downward thrust launched her lithe body through the air, an action that ruffled Castiel’s feathers and tussled his already wind-swept hair.

“See Dean, you are worthy. Only the best of men pass Anna’s judgement. A fate not many do.”  

Dean knew what that meant, but just like that time twenty years ago, he struggled to mourn a man he didn't know. 

“What happens to me now?”

“Anthemoessa is vast and there is but three of us here, Dean." Castiel tightenned his wings around Dean, hugging him closer and resting his chin and Dean's shoulder. "It can be lonely, calling some one home for an eternity, only to have no one never come,” Castiel murmured, continuing to rake his fingers through Dean’s hair in a way he could only describe as heavenly – toeing the line between just a little harder and just shy of painful. He felt in the gesture Castiel’s sadness, the burden of his solitude, and in its tenderness his hope, the plea for Dean to stay, and it made the pirate wonder how many honourable men had left before him.

“But now you’re here. We can sail the seas together, Dean, you and I. All you have to do is say yes.”

His whole childhood he’d loved Ellen’s stories of mystery and marvel and all the untold possibilities he hungered to explore. The zenith of his day would come when his face was lit with wonderment and the floodlit glow of a meagre candle, thin sheets scrunched beneath his chin as he waited to hear of the fabled foes lurking in the ocean.

He’d always craved adventure, back to the first moment he envisaged rolling waves and carousers scrubbing away at urine-stained decks aboard the _Impala_ or careening the keel, pants salty-wet and bunched above his knees with sand in his boots.  

And what greater journey was there than scaling the ocean under the shadow of a siren’s wings and his melodic voice in Dean’s ear?

It was what Dean had waited his whole life for.

He gripped the feathers by his side and touched the one he wore always on a cord around his neck.

Dean’s lips curved into a smile.  

“Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> I stuck closely to original siren mythology, in which they had half human/half bird features, but I still took some creative liberties (namely: male sirens). Unbeta'd, so if you feel like it, go ahead and let me know if you see any mistakes. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed :)


End file.
